Why Trump’s groping victims are only coming out now

If you really think that this is only some sort of political dirty tricks with all these women coming out to lie about Trump right now, because, obviously, they would have said something sooner than you are completely clueless (and quite possibly misogynistic). Do you know how much hell you have to be asking for to simply stand up and say a presidential nominee groped you? Or, that a world-famous businessman groped you? Not at all fun. Much easier to have suffered in relative silence and shared the indignity with only your family and friends.

But once that bastard starts bragging about groping women? Well, then, people will listen. When other women come forward about being victimized? Even more people will listen. Sure, you will still be attacked mercilessly by Trump, but now you have every reason to think people will actually believe you. Vox’s Dara Lind:

When several women came forward Wednesday night with allegations that Donald Trump had groped or kissed them without their consent, they were greeted in some quarters with suspicion. Many of these incidents had happened years earlier — why hadn’t they come forward at the time? If they hadn’t reported the assaults when they happened, didn’t that make it more plausible that there had never been any assault?

Trump’s accusers never really got a chance to answer that question. Trump himself answered it for them.

In his speech Thursday responding to the accusations, Trump did everything that survivors of sexual assault say they’re afraid of if they make their accusations public.

He claimed the allegations were orchestrated by the Clinton campaign — discrediting the accusers themselves by portraying them as mere pawns.

He implied that journalist Natasha Stoynoff, who alleged Wednesday night that Trump had forcibly grabbed and kissed her when she was reporting a piece about his marriage to Melania for People magazine, was essentially too ugly to assault: “Look at her. Look at her words. I don’t think so.”

He discredited another accuser, Jill Harth, by saying that she’d repeatedly sought jobs with Trump companies — implying that any continued contact with Trump clearly meant that whatever he’d done to her hadn’t been that bad. This was, he said, “an individual who has been totally discredited based on the many, many e-mails and letters she has sent to our office over the years looking for work.”

Anyway, it’s quite clear why the dam of this has burst now (also, see Roger Ailes). This is Donald Trump.